Historically pallets have been stored in drive-in racks or storage space wherein a lift truck operator drives the pallet into place and sets it down. Pallets may be set in vertically stacked pallet racks, but due to the limitation in the length of reach of the fork truck fingers, it is difficult to stack the pallets more than one or two deep on the upper pallet levels.
Storage and retrieval of the pallets is slow and awkward in such fixed pallet storage areas, due in part to the difficulty of maneuvering the fork lift truck in the generally narrow aisleways and in the pallet storage bin area.
Push back pallet storage racks are known wherein the lift truck may simply deposit the first pallet in the bin on a suitable pallet carrier, and a second or subsequent pallet in the same row can be placed in the bin by pushing the first pallet toward the rear of the bin. Such push-back storage racks may replace the commonly used drive in rack, to provide an increase in productivity and selectivity in storage.
Known push back systems commonly are difficult to guide the pallets backward on the rack, and generally have a high profile, reducing vertical storage space.